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Reflections on Congressional Government at 120 and Congress at 216

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 April 2006

David E. Price
David E. Price
Affiliation:
U.S. Representative (NC, 4th district)
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Extract

When I was looking for a quotation to garnish the introduction to my doctoral dissertation on Senate committees, I turned, like hundreds of graduate students before and since, to Woodrow Wilson's Congressional Government. “Congress in session is Congress on public exhibition,” he wrote (1885) and I quoted (1972), “whilst Congress in its committee-rooms is Congress at work.” But the book deserves better than simply to be mined for quotations. As Wilson's doctoral dissertation, it offers insights into his developing political thought. It illumines the operations of the national government during what was indeed a period of congressional and standing-committee ascendancy, although Wilson's account was neither objective nor totally reliable. And it prompts reflection on certain recurring dilemmas in the practice of American democracy.This essay is adapted from a presentation at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, November 14, 2005.

Type
SPECIAL TO PS
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 39 , Issue 2 , April 2006 , pp. 231 - 235
Copyright
© 2006 The American Political Science Association

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